


Not friends, not enemies (just strangers with some memories)

by Elisexyz



Series: Strangers [1]
Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Injury, Pre-Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-06-22 08:53:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15578217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elisexyz/pseuds/Elisexyz
Summary: Lucy has met Lorena and Iris. She was invited to dinner at their house, and at the time she enjoyed the shred of normalcy, the illusion of being part of an happy family instead of one knees deep into a secret agency fixated on world domination – “Worldsalvation,” her father’s voice corrects, promptly –, but now she just wishes that she didn’t have a face to put to the bodies that, she knows, are in part her responsibility.





	Not friends, not enemies (just strangers with some memories)

**Author's Note:**

> For the Tumblr prompt: [5\. “I’m going to take care of you, okay?” + Garcy](http://heytheredeann.tumblr.com/post/176666912594/idk-if-youre-still-doing-this-but-prompt-5-for). Lucy is time traveling for Rittenhouse at Mason Industries, she meets Flynn around there and they become pretty close friends. Then disaster ensues.

 

He shows up at her door with his clothes half covered in blood and the face of someone who is one second away from a mental breakdown. It doesn’t take much of an explanation from him for Lucy to connect the dots: he manages to get out that Lorena and Iris are dead, even if he chokes on his daughter’s name, and he keeps looking at her like he’s afraid that she’ll drop on the ground any second now.

It makes sense, he doesn’t have many friends, and he must be thinking that if they went after his family nothing is stopping them from taking down everyone else he loves too, right?

Lucy has met Lorena and Iris. She was invited to dinner at their house, and at the time she enjoyed the shred of normalcy, the illusion of being part of an happy family instead of one knees deep into a secret agency fixated on world domination – “World _salvation_ ,” her father’s voice corrects, promptly –, but now she just wishes that she didn’t have a face to put to the bodies that, she knows, are in part her responsibility.

“God, I’m—I’m so sorry,” she can only choke out, guilt twisting her stomach. She knew that Garcia was sticking his nose where he shouldn’t have, she _knew_ , and she tried to lead him away from that, to prevent him from noticing that something was _wrong_ , but she should have pushed _harder_ , she should have _done_ something.

She thanks god that her parents aren’t home.

“We need to get you away from here,” she lets out. Garcia is holding onto her arm, maybe to remind himself that she’s there or maybe simply to steady himself, and she’s gripping his jacket as well, looking apprehensively at the way he’s swaying slightly on his feet.

“How hurt are you?” she has to ask, because she’s pretty sure that she can’t perform _surgery_ , but she can’t bring him to the hospital either. Is it too much to hope that he only has scratches?

“Two bullets,” he gets out, a few seconds too late, and exhaustion starts showing on his face more and more, impressively fast.

Lucy moves a little closer to help support his weight.

“A graze too, probably,” he adds.

She nods, feeling like her brain is _spinning_ in her head as she tries to come up with a solution: she is useless when it comes to giving medical attention, seeing the inside of a person’s body makes her faint, so the only thing she can do is help with the bleeding, because the sight of blood is pretty much all she can handle.

“Okay, I—I’m gonna take care of you, and I need to get you somewhere safe, alright?” she finally says. Her family has an house, right outside of the city, that she often uses when she needs some time alone to think. Her parents avoid pressuring her when she goes there and they don’t like spending time there, so it should be safe enough. Hopefully.

“No hospitals,” Garcia clarifies, because he’s smart enough to have realized that it’s not safe.

“No, no hospitals,” she agrees. “But I need to get you some help. It’s— someone I trust.” She swallows. “Let’s get you in my car,” she adds.

They make it as fast as they can but not without difficulties: Garcia tries to support most of his weight on his own, but he keeps losing his footing and he’s clearly pushing past his limits, and Lucy draws a sigh of relief when she gets him to the passenger seat. She quickly runs back into the house to get the keys she needs and a couple of towels for the blood, her heart racing at the thought that she might come out to find that her parents are back home and they decided to dispose of the threat in her car with a bullet in his skull.

The knot in her stomach eases only slightly when she goes back to find that Garcia is still where she left him.

She helps him place the towels over his wounds – there’s an insane amount of blood, _Jesus_ – and buckles him up without asking for permission, her brain stuck on a loop of: _out of here, out of here, out of here_.

“I’m going to call you a doctor,” she announces, five minutes into their drive, when she can no longer see her house and she feels a bit relieved.

Garcia, for all he’s sweaty and pale, manages to put an astonishing amount of energy into his protest. “ _Don’t_ , it’s too risky. They might—”

“I trust him,” she interrupts. “I promise he has nothing to do with Rittenhouse. He can help.”

He stares at her for a few seconds, evidently eager to protest some more, but his exhaustion seems to be quickly catching up and he lets out a heavy sigh, closing his eyes for a few seconds instead. “Fine,” he finally mutters.

Lucy nods, swallowing back the uneasiness as she dials Noah’s number.

She feels quite guilty calling him, months – although it feels like years – after breaking up with him without a valid reason that she could give him – _My life is a mess, I don’t have enough energy for a relationship, I don’t want you involved with my crazy family, time travel is screwing up my life_ –, and she feels even worse knowing without a shadow of a doubt that he will answer and he will help.

“ _Hello?”_

She takes a deep breath. “Noah?” she calls, making a conscious effort to make her voice sound normal. “It’s Lucy.”

“ _Lucy! Why—why are you calling so late? Is everything okay?”_

She smiles at the concern, her heart aching with nostalgia for his sweetness that also serves as a reminder that she did do the right thing by letting him go. She hates having to pull him into this anyway.

“I—I’m very sorry for calling you, but I, uh, I really need your help. With my friend, who—who has been shot. Two times.”

Yep, like a band-aid.

There’s a couple of seconds of silence before Noah sensibly points out that what her friend needs is a _hospital_.

“I know, but— just trust me, hospitals are not an option. I know that you have no reason to do this, but I am— very, very much not equipped for this, and I need someone competent and that I trust and— I know I have no right to ask—”

Noah sighs. “ _Are you_ sure _you can’t go to an hospital?”_

Lucy can already her the shuffling of clothes in the background.

“Yes. Will you help?”

“ _Of course I will_.”

Lucy draws a sigh of relief, thanking god and whoever else is responsible for her path ever crossing Noah’s.

 

 

“He still would need an hospital,” Noah repeats, coming up to her. Lucy makes sure to avoid looking at the blood on his clothes, glancing instead at Garcia, who’s currently getting some rest under pain medication. She doesn’t want to think about when he’ll wake up to find out that this isn’t an horrible nightmare.

“Yes, I know— it’s just not safe,” she replies, with a bitter smile. She doesn’t think that there’ll be many places in the world safe for Garcia after this.

“Lucy,” Noah calls her to attention, his tone careful. “Does this have anything to do with why you suddenly cut me off?”

For a moment, she thinks of lying, on the off chance that he’ll decide that gunshots and body counts are not enough reason to stay out of her life. “Yes,” is the answer that comes out anyway, and it sounds a lot like an apology.

Noah considers her for a moment, an unreadable expression on his face, then he nods. “I’m still here,” he clarifies. “If you need me. Or want me.”

Lucy can only smile, pushing back a wave of sadness as she wishes, not for the first time, that her father hadn’t come back into her mother’s life and pulled them both into Rittenhouse.

“I know,” she assures. “Thank you, I really appreciate this.”

They part ways with a lingering hug that lasts a bit too long and a promise that she’ll call if there’s any problem. Lucy is then left sitting on a chair at Garcia’s bedside, feeling utterly and helplessly alone.

 

 

She wakes still sitting on that chair, her neck screaming in pain and every bone in her body cursing her for not moving to the couch when exhaustion started setting in.

She straightens on the chair, stretching her arms and neck, and it’s only then that she notices that Garcia is wide awake, staring at the ceiling in utter silence.

She finds that she doesn’t know what to say.

“Hey,” is what finally comes out. “How—how are you feeling?”

He turns his head towards her, and Lucy’s stomach drops upon realizing how _blank_ that look is.

“Alive,” he simply answers, and Lucy shoots on her feet, suddenly eager to get away from him for a second, from that _look_ that she put on his face – not directly, but she knows these people, she’s one of _them_ , and they killed his family.

“I’ll get you a glass of water,” she announces, quickly, stumbling a bit on the words. He doesn’t answer, and she doesn’t wait.

What follows is a whole lot of silence. A petty and selfish part of Lucy likes to concentrate on her bitterness at the thought that Rittenhouse ruined yet another good thing in her life, destroyed that easy friendship that she had managed to keep for herself and enjoy in the midst of the chaos in her life, maybe because it’s easier than trying to deal with a loss that could be considered in part her fault. A loss that’s not _hers_ and that she can do nothing to fix now.

Everything in this picture is _wrong_ , from Garcia’s silence to her having to change bandages and cooking something edible, from the emptiness in his eyes to her inability to find anything at all to say to him.

“I didn’t dream it, did I?” is the first thing that he asks, and even though he doesn’t specify what he’s talking about, she knows all too well.

She swallows, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “No,” she lets out. “I’m sorry,” she quickly adds, unable to stop it.

He nods. “Is it safe here?” he asks, after a pause. He turns his head towards her and he seems more lucid than he’s been all day. It makes her a little uneasy, for some reason.

She writes the feeling off as due to her guilty conscience. “Rittenhouse won’t find you here, I’m sure,” she assures.

Garcia doesn’t answer, and something on his face changes. She can’t place what’s wrong and what that expression means, mistaking it for a pained grimace at first, until he says, slowly: “I never said that name.”

“What?” she croaks out, her heartbeat fastening.

“I never told you who did this,” he repeats, coolly.

She can see that he’s trying to straighten against the pillows, maybe even trying to get up, and she automatically moves a step forward to _stop_ him, because he can’t possibly think of standing up or moving away from that bed without any help, but she stops when his expression shifts to unmistakeable anger.

“Who are you?” he demands, and the hatred in his eyes makes her stomach sink.

“It’s not what you think—” she pleads, raising her hands as if to say that she’s no threat, but he doesn’t seem to want to hear it.

“Are you one of them?” he insists, and in all his stubbornness he ends up sitting straight, his feet on the ground, even if he has to hold onto the headboard.

“No, I—I mean, _yes_ , but—” How can she _explain_ it? “I had nothing to do with this, I _promise_ —”

“How am I supposed to believe you?”

“My parents are Rittenhouse, I—I do some things, for them, but— not this, I had no idea, I _swear_ —”

“They killed my _daughter_ ,” he hisses, and for a moment she’s sure that he’ll find a way to get up moved by sheer force of anger. “Maybe I should kill _theirs_.”

Lucy takes a step back as if he had just slapped her, because he does seem to _mean_ it. In that moment, she’s utterly certain that if he had a gun in his hand he’d be at the very least _considering_ it – and a part of her doesn’t blame him in the slightest.

“Garcia— I am so, so sorry—”

“Sorry? You’re _sorry_? Sorry doesn’t bring my family back!”

“I know, I just—”

“I’m getting out of here,” he announces, and he looks fully ready to pull himself up and walk to his death.

“No, wait— you can’t, you are in no condition to be walking around, Garcia, _stop_ —” she starts yelling, panicking at the thought of him collapsing in an attempt to run away from her. “I’ll leave if you want, just—just don’t do anything stupid, alright?”

He scoffs. “Stupid was trusting _you_.”

Lucy takes the blow with a wince. “I’m not into this by choice,” she justifies, her voice tiny. “I _hate_ it, it’s— I hate it.”

Garcia just keeps glaring daggers at her, and she knows that there’s no chance in hell that he’ll get him to understand that she never wanted any of this and that she honestly had no idea that they were going to kill his family, and if she had— what then? Would she have warned him? Betrayed her family? _Maybe_ , a little voice in her head admits. Maybe she truly would have drawn the line at the Flynns’ murder, and she doesn’t know what this says about her, because she ignored a lot of strangers’ executions out of love for her mother. Maybe it just means that she’s too selfish to accept it when it means losing someone she cares about.

Maybe it’s just because dealing with them as she does deaths on history books doesn’t work all too well when it’s personal.

“You need help,” she finally lets out, interrupting the silence. “Noah doesn’t know about any of this— he’s a good person, can I— can I ask him to check in on you?”

Garcia scoffs. “How do I know you are not lying to me again?”

“I’m not, I— he really doesn’t know anything. And you need help.”

He doesn’t answer, which Lucy takes as an admission.

“I—I’ll leave, then,” she adds, taking a step back to be closer to the door, a stupid part of her kinda hoping that he’ll change his mind and decide to hear her out, to try to _understand_ , but he stays silent and she ends up leaving with the feeling of his betrayed glare still burning in the back of her head.

 

 

Noah does visit him to make sure that he’s still all in one piece, and he makes sure to update Lucy: Garcia seems to be doing quite well for someone who almost died, and he somehow seems to have decided that Noah is trustworthy – or, at the very least, a risk worth taking.

That eases her mind a little, because at least he has not run away for now, but she has no doubt that he _will_ , just as soon as he’s able to stay on his feet for more than ten minutes.

Lucy goes back to him six days after she left. She knows that Noah is at work, so she’ll find him on his own, and although she decides to knock and announce her arrival before letting herself in, she knows that he won’t be particularly happy to see her.

She finds him on the couch, his fingers closing on a knife and his eyes moving around as if he was expecting her to have come with more people.

“What do you want?” he asks, his hold on the knife easing a little.

Lucy presses her journal harder against her chest, swallowing. “Just— I have something for you.” She takes a small step towards him, her stomach twisting when he seems to stiffen, and she quickly drops the journal on the coffee table.

“What’s that?”

“My journal,” she explains, her eyes moving away from him as she tries to push down the guilt at the thought of betraying her mother, who somehow seems to think that this is good, that she should be glad that she’s part of something so important. She’s always been terrified of letting her down. “I—I’ve been collecting information. They don’t tell me everything, but— that journal has everything I know about Rittenhouse.” She swallows. “There’s a lot about time travel—”

“Time travel?” he echoes, raising his eyebrows.

She can only nod. “Yes. It’s all explained there. Maybe you can— use it. To fix things.”

She isn’t sure how, but if there’s _anyone_ who can pull it off, that’s him.

He stares at the closed journal, but he doesn’t make a move to take it. “And why would I trust you this time?” he asks then, raising his eyes on her and sounding way too bitter and spiteful for her not to be hurt by it.

She shrugs. “I—I have no idea, honestly. I’m just— I just want to help. I’ll leave that to you, and—and you can do whatever you want to do.”

He doesn’t answer. She isn’t sure what she was expecting.

“If you ever need help— you can call,” she adds, in a last pathetic attempt at connection.

Once again, he doesn’t acknowledge her, and she isn’t sure if the plain hurt on his face is better or worse than his anger.

“Alright, so— uh, bye. I hope you’ll feel better soon.”

She quickly turns her back on him and heads out the door, trying to shut up the part of her still somehow waiting for him to stop her and ask her to stay. There’s only silence as she leaves, and she can’t say that she did not deserve it.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [I know you won't care (our future isn't there)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18453599) by [MissCrazyWriter321](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissCrazyWriter321/pseuds/MissCrazyWriter321)




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